Today, I was reading commentaries on Proverbs 20:30, a verse which commends physically beating people as a way to inculcate wisdom and goodness in them: “Blows and wounds scrub away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.” (Imagine how much pain and anguish has been inflicted on people as those in power cauterized their feelings […]
genocide
The Treatment of the Canaanites is Unique and Unrepeatable? Rebutting a Popular Genocide Apologetic
One of the common gambits of the Christian apologists who defend the Canaanite genocide is to insist that the narrative does not provide a general justification for genocide because the circumstances were “unique and unrepeatable”. (For example, that is a description I have heard Paul Copan use on different occasions.) The statement seems to have […]
Frank Turek on the Slaughter of the Canaanites. And My Response.
The perfectly awful apologetic defense of the Canaanite slaughter in this clip concisely captures why I wrote Jesus Loves Canaanites. Let’s begin with the video (it’s only six minutes). I’ll then post my commentary below. ? The video begins with a question posed by the moderator of what appears to be an in-church training event. […]
God and Genocide: An Interview with Critical Witness
Today, I did an interview with an English podcast called Critical Witness. It was a very spirited discussion. These fellows aren’t afraid to push back and ask hard questions. Check it out! ?
The Bible and Genocide: The Adherent Apologetics Interview
In this interview, I discuss my new book Jesus Loves Canaanites with Zac of Adherent Apologetics. ?
God of Genocide? My Debate with John Loftus
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Driving Out the Canaanites? On a failed attempt to re-brand biblical genocide
The heart and foundation of Christianity is belief in a God who is worthy of worship: in the words of Anselm, that being than which none greater can be conceived. And so, when the Bible depicts God as acting in a manner that appears to be less-than-perfect, this creates a challenge for the Christian reader. […]
Does God command genocide in the Bible?
In this video, I offer a response to a short clip from an interview between Sean McDowell and Charlie Trimm. For the full McDowell interview, see here.
Is abortion a genocide?
Dear fellow Pro-Lifers, Please do not refer to support for elective abortion as a “genocide”. The word “genocide” has a specific meaning in international law: it refers to the attempt to destroy an ethnic, religious, or cultural identity. To be sure, genocidaires may use abortion as a means to destroy an ethnic, religious and/or cultural […]
Special Pleading or Therapy? The J. Warner Wallace Dilemma
Popular Christian apologists have a problem. On the one hand, they are strident defenders of objective moral knowledge, often to the end of defending a moral argument for God’s existence. On the other hand, they defend readings of the violence portrayed in the Bible that appear inconsistent with that aforementioned commitment to objective moral knowledge. […]
Can divine wrath explain divinely commanded genocide?
In his 2005 book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace theologian Miroslav Volf provides a penetrating reflection on the extraordinary challenge and inestimable rewards of acquiring a robust understanding of grace and forgiveness. I first became aware of Volf’s book some years ago when I was critiquing evangelical apologetic readings of […]
The Oft-Overlooked Sins of Omission
There is an important distinction between sins of commission (the evil action) and sins of omission (the evil failure to act). Note how reference to both is included in this familiar liturgical confession: We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have […]
The Act of Killing: A Review
Pull the annals of the twentieth century off the shelf and you will find them dripping with the blood of countless victims of genocide. While Steven Pinker may be right that world history is progressively becoming less violent and more civil, that is little comfort to the victims of Hitler’s concentration camps, Cambodia’s killing fields, […]
Divine Violence Revisited: My Response to Joshua Ryan Butler on “Unbelievable”
I just listened to the latest episode of “Unbelievable” with Justin Brierley which consisted of an interview with Joshua Ryan Butler and Jeff Cook. (You can listen to it here.) (You might recall that I recently reviewed Butler’s book The Skeletons in God’s Closet in three parts: part 1, part 2, part 3). The episode focused […]
